Glacier Mountaineering Society

Sat, Feb 11 2012 - Belton Hills Spur (View Original Event Details)

Coordinator(s):		Jim Foster
Participants:		Jim Foster, Denis Twohig, Bill Haring, Shirley Twohig, Caitlin Hunt

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Write Up:
Climbers: Bill Haring, Caitlin Caltabiano, Denis Twohig, Shirley Twohig, Jim Foster We had a great mid-winter day climbing a challenging little spur of the Belton Hills overlooking park headquarters. The initial 500 feet of the ascent was the most challenging due to the steepness, frozen ground and minimal snow cover. Everyone made it up safe and from there we navigated from clearing to clearing to the top in 2.5 hours, climbing 1850 vertical feet. This climb is relentless in its steepness giving a great aerobic workout. The snow at the top was deceivingly deep because of how many weak layers have formed and as the heaviest climber of the group post holed a full leg a couple of times. Caitlin did the climb unaided but the rest of us used combinations of crampons and snowshoes. On the descent and to avoid the very steep section at the end we continued contouring along the ridge and found a very benign gully that led us right back to our cars. Last year when I did this climb I tried down climbing this section and took an uncontrolled slider for about 150 feet directly into a tree. You can guess who won that clash. In all this was another wonderful winter day in paradise.

Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Tim Anderson at twamontana@gmail.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.